


How to Survive on Thin Ice

by secretsoup



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: F/F, Last Christmas!, Time Shenanigans, swears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 20:02:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsoup/pseuds/secretsoup
Summary: Webby is standing in a crowded department store with her Granny two weeks before Christmas looking at a table of black and grey striped sweaters while trying not to cry not because fate led her here, but because it's a popular style and Lena had good taste and sweaters make good gifts.It's a coincidence.“Would you like one,” Granny says softly, after a few moments, because she can see Webby is touching one, gently, two fingers on the folded corner of it like it's a stray dog that might bite.“Oh,” she says, nervous and a little shrill. She's been doing a really great job at putting on a brave face about the whole Lena thing; bravery and optimism is what Webby does best, and besides, it's not like she just found out her mother died scared and alone in outer space or anything. She hadn't even known Lena that long, or very well, what with all the lying and everything. So when you put it in perspective, really, it would be selfish to make a fuss about it. “That's okay.” Her voice cracks like thin ice. She treads carefully, has been for almost five months now, lest she break through and drown. One day she'll make it back to solid ground, maybe. “I don't even think it comes in my size.”





	How to Survive on Thin Ice

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, I don't actually know anything about Terre Haute except that I stopped there once because I had car trouble driving across the country.
> 
> Also I'm aware Past speaks in rhyme (sometimes?) but listen. Don't even worry about it.

Webby doesn't believe in fate. 

Things don't happen for a ‘reason,’ unless that reason is “you made this happen through direct action.” She doesn't believe in a ‘greater plan’ because she doesn't want to believe in a world where a family could lose their mother, sister, niece and that loss was acceptable because it was part of a greater agenda. She doesn't want to believe a little girl could be created, used, and destroyed because she was just meant to be a cog in the unseen, unending forward march of fate.

She believes in ghosts, and gods, and magic (oh, how could she not?) but she doesn't believe that good people suffer because their pain somehow justifies the big picture.

Della was lost because people made bad decisions.

Lena was lost because people chose to be cruel.

And now Webby is standing in a crowded department store with her Granny two weeks before Christmas looking at a table of black and grey striped sweaters while trying not to cry  _ not _ because fate led her here, but because it's a popular style and Lena had good taste and sweaters make good gifts.

It's a coincidence.

“Would you like one,” Granny says softly, after a few moments, because she can see Webby is touching one, gently, two fingers on the folded corner of it like it's a stray dog that might bite. It's softer than Lena's was, but maybe Lena's had been soft too, when it was new.

“Oh,” she says, nervous and a little shrill. She's been doing a really great job at putting on a brave face about the whole Lena thing; bravery and optimism is what Webby does best, and besides, it's not like she just found out her mother died scared and alone in  _ outer space _ or anything. She hadn't even known Lena that long, or very well, what with all the lying and everything. So when you put it in perspective, really, it would be selfish to make a fuss about it. “That's okay.” Her voice cracks like thin ice. She treads carefully, has been for almost five months now, lest she break through and drown. One day she'll make it back to solid ground, maybe. “I don't even think it comes in my size.”

Granny rifles through the stacks of sweaters, careful to keep the display tidy, and finds the smallest one, and, yeah, it's easily three sizes too big for Webby.

It would have been only one size too big on Lena though, which is exactly how she wore it. If Webby were as desperate and lonely as she is trying very,  _ very _ hard not to be, it would be easy to pretend it had actually belonged to Lena, even though the sweater is too new and smells too clean to have been worn by a lonely girl who lived in a hole in the ground and probably only ever knew a hot meal when she was eating it at a table next to Webby.

“We'll call it an early Christmas present. You'll grow into it.”

Webby realizes very suddenly that Lena probably never in her life had a Christmas, or a Hannukah, or a birthday, or  _ anything _ , and finds herself gripping the sweater like a lifeline. The ice under her fragile emotional stability sends out gunshot fissures in every direction and she holds perfectly, perfectly still.

“Okay,” she agrees with a tongue like lead. “Thank you, Granny.”

  
  
  
  


It's two weeks later, late Christmas eve, when Webby catches a ghost in a pickle jar.

She doesn't believe in fate, but she does believe in well timed coincidences and also time travel, and in the drunk cricket rattling around in the bottom of the jar tucked under her arm that can make it happen.

“Aw, c'mon kiddo, I'm off the clock. I've just come off a rough century and I need a break.” He urps when the jar tilts dangerously as Webby sneaks him into the kitchen.

“It won't take long, I promise.” She's shaking with a kind of manic energy and urgency that makes her feel like she's going to vibrate back in time even without his help. “Just one year, that's all I need.”

“It won't do any good,” he says in his too-sweet voice and it makes her want to walk him all the way up the tower and then bowl him down the staircase. “You can't save your little girlfriend, time travel is tricky business-”

“She's not my- I don't want to- I mean I  _ do _ , obviously, of course I do! But I  _ know _ about time travel! After what you did to Uncle Scrooge I don't think you're in any position to talk!” She sets the jar down on the counter and starts rummaging in the cupboards. “Besides, I don't want to try and save her, or warn her, or even talk to her-” (she does, of course; of course she does, but she doesn't trust herself not to ruin everything, and besides, it's not like Lena even knew her a year ago, and what good would baring her soul to her even do if Lena didn't know who she was?) “-I just want to give her a Christmas present. I don't think she's ever had one before.”

Past considers this from the bottom of his pickle jar prison. “Kidnapping is the stuff of the naughty list, you know. When Santa gets wind of this-”

“I don't  _ care _ .” Doesn't he  _ understand? _ “I don't care if I get coal every Christmas for the next hundred years, I just want to make one nice Christmas for her before she, she--” Webby stops, a stack of Tupperware in hand, closes her eyes and grounds herself.

“Say, have you tried talking to anyone about this?” He's kind of giving her the side eye, and he seems to be sobering up a little, perhaps out of concern or fear. “It's not healthy to keep your feelings bottled up-”

_ "Will you do it or not?” _

“Alright, alright! Easy there, little lady.”

“Good. Now don't move, I have to go pack.”

Webby doesn't believe in fate, but she has to admit, this is one heck of a coincidence.

  
  
  
  


Lena doesn't celebrate Christmas, and probably wouldn't if even if she had the means to. She has memories, shadows of echoes of memories, of celebrating something much, much older than Christmas, something with less tinsel and crowds of greedy shoppers and bad, oh so  _ very _ bad music, but with all the good things you really want in a winter festival, like food and drink and gifts and occasional ritual sacrifice. 

They aren't her memories, they belong to the thing that whispers to her in the dark and calls her family; the most Lena's ever had for Christmas, or anything like it, is a sack of tacos from a sheepdog in Terrier Haute who caught her trying to steal from a bell ringer outside the mall.

“Your purpose is noble, the organization is crooked as fuck, but they'll probably call the cops on you and you'll spend the night in jail,” she'd said. She bought Lena food, gave her the ski cap right off her head, and handed her a little business card with a rainbow stripe down the left edge. “This is a community center, three blocks away. There's lots of kids like you with nowhere to go for the holidays. They might be able to put you up for a few nights, get you a change of clothes. They're good people, better than some.”

Lena ate the tacos and wore the hat and wondered how a random woman on the street could take one look at her and know which kids were  _ like her _ , but never went to the community center. There's a limit to how much charity she'll accept, and besides, she's learned the hard way how many people do it for the wrong reasons. If she's not grateful enough and doesn't sufficiently stroke the charity-giver's ego, they turn smug and nasty and she's worse off than she'd be if she'd just stolen what she needed in the first place.

People tend to not trust little girls who keep getting caught talking to themselves anyway.

Duckburg is alright because she's got a pretty rad little set-up under a flooded amphitheater on the bay, all her own. It's cold and damp and crumbling and she's probably inhaling just an ungodly amount of mold, but it's secret and it's hers and best of all she doesn't have to leave, ever, because Duckburg has been her goal since Naples, all those years ago.

It's as “home” as she's ever been, which is. Actually? Just really super depressing.

But she decorated this year, kind of, a thin pine garland taken from a display at the supermarket and a gold ribbon rescued from a snowy gutter and it's… something, at least. Not much, but something. The voice mocks her for it, but unless it gets strong enough to stop her, mocking is all it can do. She lights candles (she has electricity down here, amazingly, and maybe that's not  _ super _ safe, but it, too, is something) because she likes watching the flame. It  _ feels _ warm, in a particular way that is enjoyable but does not translate to actual, tangible warmth.

She tosses the lighter aside and tucks her bill into her crossed arms on her only table. “Maybe if I did enough crimes this year Santa will bring me some coal and I can burn it for some heat.”

It's a joke, because Lena does not really believe in Santa, but the sudden and unexpected  _ thump BANG BANG BANG _ reporting from her trap door makes her scream and her mind starts reeling with superstition,  _ I summoned him, he's going to bury me alive down here with coal, it's the Krampus,  _ anyway.

She scrambles for the baseball bat she keeps in the unlikely event of intruders; she'd really rather not leave her room and reveal her secret lair to whoever's out there. It's bad enough she already screamed like a scared little girl, if Santa-Krampus or whoever finds her den she's going to have to bail and relocate, and she  _ really doesn't want to. _

She holds her bat in the ready position, holds her breath, and holds still.

No one comes. She hears no voices, no retreating footsteps, hoofbeats or sleigh bells. Eventually, after a few minutes, she lowers her bat and goes to sit on the stairs under the door.

Nothing. Just the occasional howl of the wind through the ruined columns.

Finally, she pushes open the trap door, heaving against the weight of several inches of wet snow.

Directly next to the trap door is a large reusable nylon shopping bag. There's one set of duckling-sized footprints disturbing the snow around it, but as far as Lena can see, they come from nowhere and they lead nowhere, not into the stands nor into the bay. The stage is a plain of perfect virgin snowfall in every direction, except for right here.

_ What's that _ , says the thing bubbling under Lena's subconscious. It's been there all her unnatural life, and helped her survive on her own, but it's always been relatively quiet, weak. Not since she arrived in Duckburg, though. It's stronger now, the spirit Lena carries with her that holds her hostage yet calls her kin. Also, it's needy and extremely obnoxious.

“Dunno.” Lena nudges the bag open with her baseball bat. “It's got my name on it.”

_ Don't open it, it's a trap. _

“Eh.”

Lena casts another look around the theater, and drops her bat in the snow to stoop and rifle through the package.

On top is a plastic container of singed latkes, and at the sight of something fresh and perishable her stomach clenches and growls. Duckind cannot live on cold cereal and canned vegetables alone, as hard as she tries, and she has one in her mouth before the voice behind her brain can scold her.

_ Poison! They might be poison, you stupid girl! _

Lena sighs through a mouthful of potato. “I can only hope.”

Next is a large Tupperware warm to the touch, and when she peels open the lid the smell makes her salivate: turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, fresh,  _ real _ roasted vegetables and two huge, crusty dinner rolls, all still warm despite the weather. There's a fork tucked neatly into container, and it looks like real silver. She'll pawn this, later, for sure.

Someone else's valuables: the gift that keeps on giving.

Following is a tin of meticulously decorated Christmas cookies. Thick scottish shortbread cut into stars and sugar cookie snowflakes detailed in royal icing and silver dragees. Small cubes of buttery fudge, little nutty tea cakes rolled in powdered sugar, biscuits folded around spoonfuls of homemade raspberry jam. Lena can't remember ever seeing anything so pretty that wasn't behind glass. If she rations them carefully, it'll give her something to look forward to for weeks, maybe longer if she doesn't mind them getting stale.

Alternately, she could binge them all in two days and get violently ill.

She'll decide later.

Lastly: a garment box wrapped in the thick, embossed gold and green wrapping paper and tied with a real ribbon.

_ Ah, that's the one, that's the trap, I'm sure of it. _

Lena doesn't believe that, but she unties and unwraps the box carefully anyway.

Inside is a sweater.

It's nice, and new, and she likes it. It's exactly the kind of thing she would have chosen for herself.

The tags are still on it. There's no security device to cut out of it, so someone probably paid actual money for it. After a moment of regarding it silently, she casts another look around the theater, then lifts it up out of the box. It's a little big, but that's fine. Perfect, actually. It can be her new shoplifting outfit. She lifts the sleeve to her face in a childlike impulse to feel the touch of something soft on her cheek.

_ What is this all this? Who knows you're here? Who would leave  _ **_you_ ** _ a... _ **_present_ ** _? _

It says it like it's the wildest, most unlikely thing in the whole world; that small, lonely Lena would ever be deserving of a single kind gesture. Lena bristles. The voice is really getting on her last nerve and souring an otherwise perfectly magical moment.

“Io Saturnalia, Aunt Magica.” In the tradition of her ancestors, the slave will eat like a master tonight. “Eat shit.”

  
  
  
  
  


“Aaaaw, that was sweet.”

Webby and Past watch from a safe distance, from the shadow of a second story viewing box, as Lena gathers up her presents and retreats back into her sad little hole.

“I hope so.” Webby swallows. After a moment: “I wish I could talk to her.”

“Oh?” Past rests his chin in his hands. “And what would you say to her, hypothetically, if you could speak to her, right now?”

“Oh, I don't know. That I miss her? That I'm not mad at her for, for everything, because I know it wasn't her fault?”  Something in Webby seems to break, and her voice pitches. “That I wish I could save her, because she deserves better, that, that, she was, special? To me? That she was brave and cool and pretty and she made me feel special too? And now that she's gone I don't know what to do, no one talks about her, no one even  _ thinks _ about her but me, I'm the only one that cares that she's gone because I was the only one who knew her even a little?” She scrubs at her face with the sleeve of her free hand, jostling the jar. “That it's not  _ fair _ . That I, I miss her  _ so much _ and I don't know how to make it stop hurting.”

She sits and hugs the jar for lack of anything else to take comfort from. Past considers.

“It's a shame she'll never hear that.”

Webby gapes, hurt. “You're not very  _ nice _ .”

Past shrugs and leans against the glass.. “It's the job. Mean people are contagious. But  _ you _ did a kind thing tonight, Miss Vanderquack. Maybe someday,  _ someone _ will do the same for  _ you _ . That sure would be nice, wouldn't it?”

He affects his words like he's trying to get a point across, but Webby shakes her head, missing it, and rightfully so, because he wasn't aiming at her in the first place.

It's been a big night for Lena.

For both of them.

The Lena of last year got one  _ really _ nice christmas, and only got a  _ little _ sick off the cookies.

The Lena of this year got the truth.

To be honest, she never thought about it too much, where the stuff came from that Christmas eve, only that it was there and free and that she didn't have to put on a show accepting it, which in some ways is the greatest gift of all. She had no reason to suspect Webby, who she wouldn't meet for several more months and who she never would have believed capable of time travel anyway, but also because, well. She's been lucid these past six months, and Webby's right. No one talks about Lena. No one's mourned her, or missed her, or acknowledged her absence in any way. People talk about attending their own funeral to see who shows up and what goes down, to see how your friends  _ really _ feel, but surprise, not only has no one shown up, no one even thought to schedule the damn thing.

That feeling? Knowing not even  _ Webby _ brings up her name anymore? Carried on after like she never even knew her? Has kind of sucked in a big, big way.

Of course she knows that's not really the case, now. Maybe if she'd paid closer attention, she'd have thought twice of Webby bringing home a sweater that was twin to her own, or she'd have recognized the cookies when the family gathered to make them last week. She also failed to consider how much Webby takes her cues for acceptable behavior from everyone around her. Now she's just mad no one saw Webby trying not to grieve and tried to help her with it, and when they get back home, Lena's gonna… she's gonna… what? Give them an earful over it? After she hid from Webby for  _ months _ ?

Past is giving her a Look over Webby's shoulder.

_ Okay okay _ . She tries to communicate with a head shake a hand wave.  _ I get it _ .

Webby doesn't believe in fate, but Lena's never really had an option. She's lived her entire borrowed life fulfilling someone else's purpose, and once that purpose was served, she was always going to be thrown away.

But she's stolen a second chance, taken charge of her story, and she's been wasting it because she's been too afraid to face Webby.

(Of course, if she'd faced Webby sooner, would Webby have come here, now, and left her these these things? Would she have gotten the sweater some other way, or--)

“Best not to think about it to hard!” Past says sweetly. Webby thinks he's speaking to her.

“I don't think I like you very much,” Webby says, standing up and unscrewing the jar. “I want to go home now.”

“Fine by me, Miss Vanderquack. We've all accomplished something good tonight.”

  
  
  
  
  


First thing in the morning.

Lena's done hiding.

Webby has slept fitfully, in part because her experience with Christmas Past has left her feeling a little hollow, and also in part because  _ Christmas _ . Her sleepy brain doesn't comprehend, at first, until her shadow waves, bashful, and says, “Merry Christmas.”

Webby  _ screams _ .

The entire household convenes at Webby's room, ready for a fight, to find her in her nightgown, in tears, kissing the wall where her shadow glows,  embarrassed and overwhelmed and more than a little emotional herself.

“Thank you for the presents,” Lena says. “The cookies were amazing.”

“I made them,” Webby says, beaming at her.

“I know.”

With her face pressed against the wall: “I missed you.”

And Lena, even though she was there all along: “I missed you, too.”

“This is going to be  _ really _ anticlimactic,” Dewey whispers loudly from the crowd in the hallway. “I got her a new Swiss army knife.”

Granny shoos everyone away from Webby's door, unphased in the face of a schedule to keep. “Presents downstairs in eight minutes, girls. Don't be late.”

Webby doesn't believe in fate, but she believes in magic, and sometimes that's close enough.


End file.
